Skirting the Grave

by Annette Blair

Aw, let the gossips have some fun. Correcting them will give Nick something to concentrate on when he can talk again, and it’ll boost his bruised ego for his Mystick Falls neighbors to think the young Isobel was interested in him–-and in the process they’ll discover that he and I broke up.

  “Isobel gave me a trunk of her grandmother’s clothes from the fifties,” I told the Sweets. “Ethel, would you like to help us put them on hangers?”

  At Vintage Magic, Ethel loved to help.

  Dolly loved to canoodle. Her word.

  “You know how much I love to help, cupcake.” Ethel said. She took Isobel’s arm. “Don’t be sad to leave your family, dear. Vintage Magic is a wonderful shop, and Madeira’s a sweetie. We helped raise her, you know.”

  It was true. The whole town helped after my mother died, Aunt Fiona and the Sweets more than anyone. Before school plays, the Sweets knew the lines better than we kids. And how many sports events can two elderly ladies actually want to attend? Didn’t matter. They attended them all. Bar none. Winter and summer.

  Sometimes I thought maybe the Cutlers gave the Sweets a reason to go on, kept them young and all.

  Dolly shrugged. “I can’t decide between Paris When It Sizzles and some good old fifties clothes.”

  “Hey,” Dante said. “You wanna remember the fifties or relive them?” He wiggled his brows, and she let him take her back to Paris . . . and the fifties.

  That nook never sizzled the way it did when they used it.

  Dante’s new energy and his ability to move things, like opening and closing doors, might make him more fun, which Dolly would certainly appreciate.

  My cell phone rang, and though I didn’t recognize the number, I picked it up because of all the prep going on for Brandy’s fund-raiser this Saturday and Sherry’s baby shower on Sunday.

  “The tents?” I asked. “Yes, of course, I still need them. You still have the deposit, don’t you? No, I don’t want my money back. I want the bleeping tents! What? You can’t cancel on me three days before a nationally advertised fund-raising event.”

  I listened to the guy’s excuses with half an ear. “I don’t care if you have to rent them yourself from the wilds of Africa and have them caravanned in by elephant train, I want those tents delivered, as contracted, to the Vancortland estate this coming Friday before eight A.M., or you’ll hear from my lawyer, my sister’s lawyer, the Nurture Kids Foundation lawyer, the Vancortland lawyer—”

  “Good idea. You do that.”

  I clapped my phone shut. “Amazing how the word ‘lawyer’ clears everything up.”

  Nineteen

  The erogenous zone is always shifting, and it is the business of fashion to pursue it, without ever catching it up.

  —JAMES LAVER

  “What was that about?” Isobel asked, though it was obvious everyone wanted to know.

  “Oh, Brandy’s fund-raising event. The Carousel of Love fund-raiser next weekend on the Vancortland estate grounds. We need the tents in case of rain, though I’d rather see them used for keeping the attendees and donors out of the sun and to serve up some iced refreshments.”

  “When is Brandy coming home?” Dolly asked. “Isn’t she cutting it a bit close?”

  Ethel elbowed her mother-in-law. “How well do we know Brandy?”

  Dolly chuckled. “Right,” she said. “She often cuts things close, but how could she plan such a big event from the Peace Corps?”

  I raised a brow.

  “Of course,” Ethel said. “You planned it.”

  “To be fair, Brandy’s not with the Peace Corps, anymore. She’s with the Nurture Kids Foundation, and she was able to send invites to their connections and some of her own donor friends from New York, where she currently lives and works for the foundation. From here, I invited my vintage clothing collector friends, like Melody Seabright and Kira Fitzgerald Goddard, who came to my last fashion show. And they invited their friends, the Cartwright sisters, all four, because they have their own vintage clothing shop, the Immortal Classic. I also let all of my shop customers and Cort’s vintage car enthusiast buddies know about the event.”

  All the time I was talking, Nick ran a finger up and down my spine, a sensation I adored, and he knew it. His silent seduction didn’t last long, because I shivered, and Dolly silently chided him.

  Nick reclaimed his hand.

  “Brandy will be here after six tonight,” I said, ignoring their looks. “And she’ll run with the rest of the prep.” No need to be catty and tell the truth, that she’d still probably leave it to me.

  “What does she have left to do when she gets here, for the event, I mean?” Isobel asked, hanging another carhop minidress, this one hot pink with a black poodle on the skirt.

  My mind worked in one direction while I answered in another. “She has to call the VIP invitees, personally, to remind them about the importance of the weekend. Everything else is done—from getting Cort’s vintage auto club buddies to bring their cars, to the fifties clothes for the models who’ll show off each car like they did in the fifties, matching them for style and looking pretty. OMG,” I said. “Let’s put three of them in carhop outfits. How utterly pulled-together that would look, though I didn’t know we’d have carhop outfits at our disposal.”

  Nick put his arm around my neck and pulled me back against him. I turned in his embrace, wrapped my arms around his waist, and laid my head on his chest. “Thanks for the sign of approval. I’m so very sorry I hurt you.”

  He pulled me around the corner between the counter and the door, grabbed a notebook, and wrote, “Sorry I didn’t trust you.”

  “That kiss dream happened months ago, but I’ll forgive you if you forgive me for beating the scrap out of you last night?”

  “Done,” he wrote.

  “On again?” he printed, looking hopeful.

  I sighed. “Friends, remember? There’s too much I want to do with the shop. Faline ran the show in New York. The shop’s my chance to do it my way. Little hint, though: I like to be appreciated. Not pampered or catered to, but not forgotten for months on end, either. And I’m not talking about your job but your attitude. Think about it.”

  “I will,” he noted on his pad. “Werner appreciates you, doesn’t he?”

  “He does. I’ll bring you some hot homemade broth to sip through a straw later, after I pick up Brandy at the train station, ’kay?”

  His eyes twinkled, though he couldn’t smile.

  “We’ll talk,” I said.

  He frowned.

  “Sorry, bad joke. Just don’t go getting any ideas.”

  He wrote, “Moi?” on the paper, touched his lips, then mine, and left.

  I watched him cross the parking lot. The silent hunky type practiced in turning my knees to jelly. “You should get some rest,” I yelled after him, and he raised his arm, his thumb and forefinger forming an O for “Okay.”

  When I got back to my worker bees hanging clothes from the trunk, so much more of Elizabeth Kingston York’s clothing had been unpacked. Ethel may not have Dolly’s sparkling personality or adventurous, try-anything attitude, but that woman could outwork a Fembot on speed.

  “Is that a mink coat?” The animal lover in me fought with the fashionista. I read the label on the marvel of matched pelts. “Isobel, you’re giving me a 1952 Christian Dior full-length mink coat?” I reached for it with both hands.

  “Do not!” Eve shouted. “Touch that coat!”

  I whisked my hands away and held them behind my back. “When did you get here?”

  “Just this minute, thank the stars. I must be psychic. Oh, crap, no.”

  Isobel frowned. “Why can’t she touch it?”

  Eve’s eyes widened. “She’s . . . allergic . . . to mink. She found out at a . . . fashion show . . . in New York . . . I was there.” Eve tilted her head, her expression focusing on me, her eyes conveying something like, “Help me, you time-traveling freak.”

  I had made peace with my psychometric gift. Eve had not.

>   Yes, I knew her well, though her fashion look of the week surprised me. She’d had her hair cut into a perfect pageboy with bangs, dyed white, with a blue streak braided near her face on one side. The braid was tied with a cluster of bright feathers and beads.

  “Like the do?” she asked. “Kyle dared me.”

  “Kyle is good for you. I love the blue streak, the bright beads and feathers. You’re actually wearing colors instead of all black. But really, did you have to euthanize a goldfinch, a cardinal, and maybe a hummingbird for that bouquet of feathers?”

  “First of all, my new gothic steampunk look isn’t all black. I wear earth tones now, mostly black and tan, it’s true, with gold, brass, copper, and silver gears and stuff. The feathers and beads, they’re man-made and come from a craft store. So, no dead birds, she who adores the hides of ittle bittie minks, leopards, bunnies, gators, and—”

  “Snakes!” I added, and Eve shuddered, because she hated snakes above all things. She especially detested their skin on a pair of shoes.

  “I adore your look,” Isobel said, like Eve was Madonna or Victoria Beckham, or someone whose ring she should kiss.

  “Eve, this is Isobel York, my new intern, and Isobel, this is Eve Meyers, my best friend in the world. She saved my life when we were six.”

  “How’d a six-year-old do that?”

  “Like an idiot, but that’s beside the point,” Eve said. “Mad, here, jumped off a big-ass whaleboat to retrieve the purse that matched her skirt. Dumb, hey? And Dumber, here, I jumped in after her to save her.”

  I put an arm around Eve. “We’ve been best pals ever since.”

  “How long ago was that?” Isobel asked.

  “Nearly fifteen years ago,” Eve said with a straight face, but Ethel’s involuntary laugh gave us away. It was a rare day in hell that anybody could make Ethel laugh.

  “We’re a little bit older than you, Isobel,” Eve said. “But we don’t like to admit it.”

  “Hah!” Dolly said, joining us, Dante watching from his favorite chair. “I’m going on a hundred and four, and I’m proud of it.”

  “Yeah, well, the scales tip after a while,” I said. “What else do we have in this bottomless trunk?”

  “You, sit,” Eve told me. “I’ll help put the clothes on hangers. I saw Werner. He said you were sick as a dog this morning.”

  “And you passed out at home.” Isobel gasped. “Are you pregnant?”

  I knelt and braced myself on the edge of the trunk. “Yeah, another one of those miracle conceptions, this time with the daughter of a witch. Wouldn’t my mother be proud?”

  The shop phone jarred us out of our amusement, its ring harsher than my cell phone, and Isobel raised a hand to stop me, as if answering was her job now. “Vintage Magic, Isobel York here. Can I—” She frowned, waited, paled, and hung up.

  I knew that her picking up was a bad idea. “Did he speak with a scary voice from the tomb, like he wanted to chew you up and spit you out?”

  “Yes to the voice, but his words were worse.” She rubbed her arms and then crossed them tight in front of her. “He said, ‘You’re supposed to be dead.’ ”

  Twenty

  I wore a lot of vintage clothing. I dressed like a reporter, with a little card in my hat. I had these fantasies of who I wanted to be, so I’d dress like an explorer, a cowboy. I dressed up like Elton John a lot too. That was another period.

  —ILLEANA DOUGLAS

  “We raised that girl better than this,” I told my dad, as we stood waiting for the six thirty train that night, trying to figure out where we went wrong.

  Sure, I’d been late because my phone was being bugged by the police, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t look like Brandy had made this train, either.

  “This is my third trip to pick her up, and I swear if my cell phone rings one more time while I’m standing on this platform—”

  “There she is,” he said.

  “Oh yeah, the one who looks like a refugee from a thrift store Dumpster.”

  “Watch your tone, young lady,” my father said. “Try not to pick a fight on the first day.”

  “Sorry, Dad.” Brandy was actually dressed better than Payton had been, and I thanked heaven Brandy came strutting up to us alive and safe and with a twinkle in her eyes. The twit, she’d dressed like that to yank my chain.

  I chuckled, because suddenly her clothes didn’t matter. She and her smile did.

  Brandy threw herself into my father’s arms, and I saw the glint of moisture in his eyes. He was such a great dad. While Sherry and I favored his side of the family, except that I had Mom’s hair, if Brandy resembled anyone, even the slightest, it was Mom. In looks not demeanor, although she did have my mom’s famous pure, stubborn determination. Now, our brother, Alex, he was a true mix of both parents, almost dad’s clone in build and height, he was a man who fought, physically if necessary, for what he believed in, unlike a certain softspoken professor we loved. After all, an FBI agent would have to be a fighter.

  Alex! Damn. Now that Nick, his partner, was out of commission, my brother would be pulled back to work to carry the load for them both. My sister-in-law, Tricia, was going to kill me when she heard I beat the scrap out of Nick. Though this early in her second pregnancy, she probably didn’t pack as much of a wallop. I took comfort in that.

  The whole family would be together this weekend for the fund-raiser. That would be great. I hugged my sister Brandy and remembered how scared I’d been when I saw that ambulance yesterday. “Brandy, I’m so glad you’re home safe.”

  “Safe? Do you think the world is any safer here in Mystic, just because this is a small town in a First World country? Do you think your high-fashion customers have never committed a crime? What about ignoring the hungry around the world?”

  Ignore the dig. Ignore the dig. “My high-fashion customers make up two-thirds of your invitation list for this weekend. And they’re generous to a fault, so lay off.”

  “I’m just saying.” Her words indicated that she’d backed down but, woolly knobby knits, could that girl raise her nose any higher in the air?

  I looked at my father, who shrugged and gave me the puppy dog look that begged me to keep the peace.

  “Is Isobel here?” Brandy asked.

  “Yes, and she’s suggested we take you for a development director’s makeover.”

  “I don’t have time for a makeover,” she said, throwing her torn duffel into the back of my Element like it was Nick’s battered, secondhand, military-issue Hummer.

  “Brandy, you don’t have to go high-fashion, in fact you shouldn’t,” I said. “You want to look professional but not like you’re wasting the foundation’s money. Nevertheless, a development director should always represent a winning cause—”

  “Five minutes, and you’re going to tell me how to do my job and read me my faults? Besides, Nurture Kids isn’t a winning cause. The foundation’s in trouble, and donors need to know that.”

  “No, they don’t. Giving to a losing cause is the same as flushing your money down a toilet. Focus on the foundation’s positives. The good you do. The kids you’ve helped. And for heaven’s sake, look successful.”

  “Dad, she’s always telling me what to do. People are coming to help Nurture Kids, not to see what their development director is wearing.”

  “You know,” my father said, with a familiar gleam. “This reminds me of a quote by Albert Einstein.” He hugged us both, one on either side of him. “When Einstein’s wife asked him to change clothes to meet the German ambassador, Einstein said, ‘If they want to see me, here I am. If they want to see my clothes, open my closet and show them my suits.’ ”

  I crossed my arms. “I’ll bet Einstein wasn’t wearing mismatched moccasins and a stained top.”

  My father squeezed my shoulder in retaliation for the comment and as a signal for me to cool it.

  “The moccasins match; it’s just that one of them was a window display and the other stayed boxed, so one is faded.”
Brandy chuckled. “Okay . . .” She looked down at herself as if getting it. “I agree to look as professional as I can afford to on a tight budget. Will you help me, Mad?”

  I thought I might cry. “If you’ll accept at least a weekend’s worth of outfits as a gift, you’re welcome to come to my shop and look around. I’ve got some classic business suits on sale simply because they’re not as vintage as I’d like or by significant designers. And I know you’re not into spikes, but think about comfy squashheeled dress shoes or flats. I can probably set you up with a go-anywhere, mix-and-match wardrobe wellsuited to a development director.”

  “Is tomorrow too soon?” Brandy asked. “I want to accept Cort’s invitation to stay with him until Saturday, but I’d like to look good when I get to his place, though I didn’t quite realize that until you pointed out my wardrobe’s shortcomings.”

  “You’re not staying at home while you’re here?” my dad asked, looking only half-disappointed.

  She chuckled, because we could all read him dreadfully well. “You don’t mind, do you, Daddy?”

  I rolled my eyes at her behind his back.

  “ ‘The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage,’ ” he quoted. “ ‘A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, “Daddy, I need to ask you something,” he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan.’ That Garrison Keillor must have had at least three daughters.”

  We each kissed his cheek. “Hey, a dad sandwich.”

  “I like Cort,” Brandy said, stepping back. “I’m flattered at the invite, and it’ll be so much easier getting ready for the weekend if I make my fund-raiser’s location home base. Supplies will be delivered for the next few days, after all. I can’t believe you got Scotland’s famous MacKenzie Carousel to stop at Cort’s on its traveling exhibit across the U.S.”

  “Well, you can thank Melody Seabright and Kira Fitzgerald Goddard for that. Your cause is close to their hearts, and their best friend is Victoria Cartwright MacKenzie, wife of the MacKenzie Carousel owner, Rory MacKenzie, who is the great-great-great-grandson of the original carver.”